sea wife watch ants carry tiny fractions of a leaf across a log? Well then, while aboard ‘Juliet,’ it is decreed you must do those things. Going to be brisk out there today. Everybody is tethered and in vests. In a minute, we will make the next leg of our incredible journey. We will head her into the wind & hoist the mainsail. Then we will feel that ancient pull. Like plugging into the cosmos.
The little dyings are so much harder. The interstices. Look at me. Even though I’m safe, back in my comfortable home, I’m still acting like a refugee— scavenging, foraging, guarding my small space, waiting out the end of the war. I’m going to survive, I know that. Someday, I will talk about this calmly and insightfully. And for a good many years after that, I will go about my days, washing and dressing and caring for this body, but only out of obligation, out of the prolonged obligation to stay alive—I want to say “for the kids,” but I know that even if I were childless, I would keep surviving, keep eating and drinking, going on. These actions will filibuster my mortal end, which I will be permitted to achieve only when my body gives out. Because, as it turns out, we don’t really die of broken hearts. Sadly.
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– Sea Wife: A Novel by Amity Gaige –